


gardens in the desert sand

by bookwormywriter



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author is Striving for Historical Accuracy and Doing Their Best, Canon-Typical Violence, Castration, Espionage, Everyone Meets Different, Experimental Style, Found Family, Gen, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Mentions of Slavery, Unbeta'd We Die Like Immortals, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwormywriter/pseuds/bookwormywriter
Summary: He has had many names over the years.  Been many people.  Nicoloso Arduinica born 915, son of a minor land owner.  He has been Nico Genovese; Nicholas Smith; Nikita Kozlov; Nikolaj; Mikuláš; and now he is Nicky.He has been and done many things, as well.  Priest; slave; advisor; guardian; assassin; eternal.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 22
Kudos: 185





	gardens in the desert sand

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, imma be honest, I don't know what the fuck this even is, it just wouldn't leave me alone. Amalgamated and inspired by two kink meme prompts where Nicky was taken and killed in the Sacking of Genoa in 935 and another where Nicky was sold into the Arabian Slave Trade. I don't know if I quite filled the requirements of the prompts but this is what happened.
> 
> I also don't know what this style is, this whole thing spilled out of me in like 2 hours. 
> 
> Any historical inaccuracies are my own. If I made any glaring mistakes please correct me.

He has had many names over the years. Been many people. Nicoloso Arduinica born 915, son of a minor land owner. He has been Nico Genovese; Nicholas Smith; Nikita Kozlov; Nikolaj; Mikuláš; and now he is Nicky. 

He has been and done many things, as well. Priest; slave; advisor; guardian; assassin; eternal. 

The name forever etched onto his heart, however, is the man who he became after 935. Nikolas ibn Rinieri ibn Branca al-Masri. It is the person who forged the man he is today.

Now, in Kelowna, British Columbia he is Nick Anderson, husband to Joseph Jones PhD.

He thinks that he likes Nick Anderson. It is easy to live in his skin. To be an aspiring author with a husband who works in the art scene. To stay at home and garden, keep bees, transcribe his writing.

They have been here, undercover, for almost three years. Joe is working on infiltrating an organization well known for art theft and illegally selling antiquities. 

It is a good job. Cushy, as Nile likes to call it. 

Nicky had shrugged at the time. Nile was right of course. Killing was something they did, but not all they did. Not all he and Joe did. They’d been trained from the beginning by the best - first the Nizari Isma’ili, later the shinobi in Japan, later still the KGB. Dismantling hierarchy from the inside had been one of the first things Nicky had learned from the Emir whom he had served under. The one who had acquired him fresh from Spain to Fes. 

He can still remember the sight, waking up to the sound of alarm and shouting. The smell of smoke. Invaders. 

Genoa had been a budding infantile economy then. Picking itself up from the remnants of Frankish invasion and bloat. They traded with Greece, with India, with other parts of what became Italy and Spain. It had attracted the eyes of raiders.

Though many in history say it was for unknown reasons. They cannot explain it. Greed, Nicky has found, often causes many things. The city finally fell in late summer. He had been taken captive by the raiders, sailed for ten days to Spain and then summarily pushed into the slave market. He’d been prized for his pale skin, his literacy. 

He’d make a good gift, he remembers the hawkers saying. 

He remembers being held down by his arms and thighs. He remembers the knife. He remembers the searing heat between his legs and fever that followed for days.

He still remembers succumbing to the fever. The slip into blackness that came with flashes of steppes so wide and vast they seemed heavenly. He dreamt of a horse, wild and sable colored. Of piercing dark eyes and fletching arrows and the heavy grip of an axe in his hands. 

He lived.

Malik ibn Dawud ibn Hassan al-Shami was a surprisingly good man. Upon his immediate acquisition of Nicoloso he’d offered a  _ mukataba _ —a contract toward freedom. He set to rights Nicky’s new life. Had him taught in Arabic, in Darija, in Masri, in Farsi, in Greek. Nicky learned jurisprudence and etiquette and swordplay. 

It was a bit odd to say he thrived. But in many ways, in Nicky’s mind, it was no different from the monastery. Hell, he oddly had more choice there than if he’d still be cloistered. In some ways. 

He remembers the first time he thinks he died. Saving Malik’s third wife Ameera and her two sons from an assassination attempt. He hadn’t even thought before he’d acted. He and Ameera had been discussing the household finances while Jibraeel and Tuma studied at her feet. The man burst in - Nicky recalled him - one of Malik’s brothers, Faizan, dagger raised and bellowing in rage. He remembers jumping, yelling at the boys and the woman to run. He remembers tackling him to the carpets and wrestling with him. He remembers getting his hand around the hilt of the dagger and then everything goes black.

He woke to the sound of water. To the quiet recitation— _ Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un _ . 

The scream Malik made when he sat up, years later, would make Nicky laugh, but in the moment only caused confusion. He’d died, they said. Heart stopped. Throat crushed. They immediately called for an imam and a physician to explain the situation. They prayed for days for guidance. Examined every inch of his body. They never attempted to replicate the killing, but when he had no blemish of death, or of wound, they simply declared it as the will of Allah. 

Nicky was immediately manumitted by Malik, became his mawla, a man whom he could entrust with his safety and the safety of his family. In a way he became a family heirloom. An open secret among the court to keep and be kept. 

He moved to Cairo in 1018 with Jibraeel’s descendants. He’d had fierce daughters who had raised stalwart sons. 

War came.

War always came.

They headed east. 

He remembers, late one night after Isha on their journey toward Jerusalem simply sitting in front of the fire, thinking about his life. Over one hundred years. The closer they got toward the Holy Land, the stranger it felt. Like he was being torn in two. He was not an invader like the people of his once homeland sailing to Jaffa, but he was not fighting for the freedom of the land quite like the settlers. 

His dreams had been plagued of late. The same dark eyed, dark haired women. Riding across vast lands of green. He knew their names, somehow. They echoed in his head. Andromache and Quynh. There had been a third name once, a blip he’d caught, but it had faded before he could hold it tight. 

Now he dreams of a new face. A crossbow bolt to the throat. A man who had been travelling and had been in the wrong place when the face of Christendom had decided his fate. His name was Yusuf. 

He’s startled out of his thoughts by footsteps closeby and raises his gaze from the firelight toward the noise. Hessa, the wife of their leader - Malik’s great-great-grandson Rasul - smiles at him. He nods, smiles back, not wanting to break her silence after prayer. She folds herself up, tucking her skirts under her against the rug she’s rolled out and rests her chin on her knees. 

They are quiet for a long time until she finally turns to him, holding out a basket of preserved apricots.

“It must be lonely for you, my brother.”

He hums, shrugs, takes a bite of apricot. “I have you all.” 

She smiles softly in that way of hers. “Yes and no. We are with you but we cannot know your struggle under Allah’s hand. If there are others like you as you believe your dreams have guided you, then you will have a family.”

He shrugs again. If he finds them. If they are real. 

“Who will care for all of you if I go?” She levels him with a look that has him smothering his laughter in his hands. He nods at her. “If I find any, I will be sure to tell you.”

She gives him a pleased look and returns to her tent. 

When he falls asleep by the fire he hears screaming and begging in his ears. He hears zenize for the first time in over a century blaspheming a people who do not deserve it. He bolts upright off his bedroll, hands fumbling over his layers to push confusedly and clumsily over repaired skin. 

_ You are not alone _ he thinks to the dream apparition. To the man no doubt holding himself together after being cleaved in two. 

_ I will find you. _

When they arrive in Jerusalem the siege has been happening for nearly a month. The people of the city have been trying to hold off on two fronts and have been steadily losing ground to the invaders. Genoa had sent men and equipment. Siege weapons and towers. Nicky had a hard time to believe these were once his people. 

Still, he was a white face in a place where people who had other faces like him would trust him. He spoke their language. They thought he had the same values as them. He ran interference. Intercepted men, learned their routes. He did his best to save the women and children who fled from him as if he were any other supposed Frank. 

God damned Franks. They just loved territory that wasn’t theirs for the taking. Had taken Lombardy from his people and now wanted the Holy Land because the Pope had declared it just. It was the first time Nicky had come face to face with his religion being used in ways he despised. Heretic, the men who found out about him said. Traitor.

Better to be a traitor than a murderer, he’d think moments before running them through with a spear or a blade. 

He’d been helping clear a small quarter of the city when he was hauled by a strong grip on his forearm into a doorway. His back is to the stone, his blade up and—

He’s real.

He’s real.

He’s  _ real _ .

“I thought you were a dream.” Yusuf had said. “A mamluk with a face of an invader.” 

“Yusuf, yes?”

“Yes. Now if you don’t mind I’m going to kill you. I need to get us out of here so we can talk properly.

Nicky had stared for a long moment. Then Yusuf stabbed him in the stomach. The shock had been so real that it startled a laugh out of him.

It was a reasonable plan. It got them out of the city without much of a look. By the time they were past the walls and stolen into the camp, Nicky had healed. Woke to find himself draped over Yusuf’s back and being carried across the sand. 

Hessa emerged from the tents, her hands wrapped around a scimitar when Nicky was dropped at Joe’s feet on the edge of the camp. Nicky squinted one eye at her, gestured vaguely in Yusuf’s direction.

“I found one.”

She stared at him for a long moment, looking toward Yusuf warily, then to Nicky, who was being helped up and dusted off by Yusuf’s hands. She heaved out a sigh, shoved the sword into its sheath and looked to Yusuf.

  
“I suppose you’ll wish to talk to my husband, then.”

Yusuf’s bright, easy smile was the first thing Nicky fell in love with as he followed Hessa into the tent at Nicky’s side. 

Things fell into place with Yusuf at his side. A companionship he hadn’t known he’d longed for. They became sellswords. They learned the art of infiltration. Subtlety.

It was hard to leave his life behind in a manner, but refreshing and invigorating to step into the new one with Yusuf. 

He remembers the first time he told Yusuf he loved him after Yusuf mended one of his cloaks. His smile had been so bright and his lips were soft in spite of the dry desert wind. 

He remembers the first time Yusuf saw him naked, the open adoration in his eyes. The way he had brushed fingertips over the edges of Nicky’s form, watching goosebumps rise up on his skin. His kiss had been fierce and hot; striking Nicky to the very core. How Yusuf could desire him so wholly after seeing his blemished and incomplete body had taken a while to adjust to. 

Yusuf seemed to enjoy proving it with his mouth, his hands, his cock. It had felt so good, to be so embraced and almost smothered with desire. He had never really desired to be with anyone before Yusuf; wasn’t sure if he wanted anyone  _ but _ Yusuf. That was fine, they had time. 

Sex with Yusuf was fun and interesting and a test in both patience and frustration. He was frustrated that he couldn’t always stay hard enough to fuck Yusuf or that he couldn’t indulge in the primal urge to mark Yusuf with his come. Yusuf would always wait patiently and kiss him, encouraging him to use fingers or toys. Remained still at times when Nicky would want to leave bites on his skin. 

Yusuf’s love was all-encompassing in the best of ways. Supportive and warm. Honest and genuine.

They were in Syria in the late 1300s when they met Andromache and Quynh for the first time. So like them and so unlike them. In love and eternal. They travelled together at times, apart for others. 

When Booker came they welcomed him to their family. At Quynh’s insistence they settled while Booker spent his first lifetime with his family. They grew together. Helped teach Booker’s sons, helped Booker’s wife Vivenne understand the realities of the situation. When the last of Booker’s immediate family died, they travelled. 

They taught him the world beyond his borders. The world advanced quickly. Industrialization gave way to globalization. The world had changed so much that in two hundred years the military Booker knew was so different from the one they were introduced to with Nile. 

They’d found her after her humvee ran over an IED. The rest of her group had died. Pulled her still dead body from the wreckage outside of Helmand and answered all of her questions when she came back. 2011 was a difficult year.

Now Nile has settled into her new life. She enjoys being a “Man in the Chair” similar to Booker. Whereas Andy and Quynh go for a more direct route to solve problems, Nicky and Joe, as always, prefer the quieter routes at times. Booker and Nile help them all out with passports, documents, technology. 

Now they are here, in Canada, awaiting Nile to help with their target. Dillon Rogers, supposed philanthropist, historian, art collector. He’s been making a profit off of the rise of ISIS and the pillaging of ancient sites. Supposedly new found (read: stolen) artifacts come across his docket. Andy and Quynh will be joining them for the eventual, wonderful takedown. Andy is never one to miss a heist, but is currently in Cambodia with Booker and Quynh helping with an organization to help remove the landmines left by the Khmer Rouge.

Rogers likes pretty young things as much as he likes money. 

Nile wants to learn how they work.

They’ve agreed to show her a few things

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tumblr [here](https://a-little-bit-of-ultra-violence.tumblr.com) and a twitter @bookwormywriter where you can contact me and flail. You can also send me prompts. _please_
> 
> You can also hit me up on the new fan discord [here](https://discord.gg/DwKHcym). We'd love to have you.
> 
> Also please leave a comment if you can; they really keep me motivated!


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